Later this month, Shawn Anderson will be going back to Cali, his previous home, to make back-to-back presentations at two different conferences: LA RubyConf and SCALE (the second time in two years). For both, he is presenting on developing 2D games using Ruby and open source tools (including a library that he wrote).
From an early age, Shawn distinguished himself as one who enjoyed gaming. Unlike other kids who were “reading” or engaging in “outdoor sports,” Shawn was content to stay in and finish off King Hippo in Punch-Out!. Over the last couple years he has renewed this early childhood interest. Since college, he has been using his free time to develop games in Ruby; he has even created his own library for gaming in Ruby – Gamebox. Gamebox was designed to spring board game development. It allows the developer to define business rules about a game very quickly without having to worry about resource loading, sound/music management, creating windows, or messing with viewports. Shawn says he wrote Gamebox for two reasons: first, to aid in 48 hour game writing competitions and second, to allow him to write simple educational games for his kid(s). He is currently working on a game called Snelps RTS (noneducational, from what I’ve seen), and the slightly educational Free Radicals.
This workshop is intended for people who already know Ruby but are interested in writing games in Ruby. At the end of the class the participants will have a basic understanding of how 2D games work and will have created a small space invaders clone with animation and sound.
Links:
Info for Shawn’s LA RubyConf Presentation
Info for Shawn’s SCALE Presentation
Getting Started with Gamebox (Source Code)
Snelps Screenshot:
Free Radicals Screenshot:
